The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 414: Jealousy is blind, even to our other self

Chapter 414: Jealousy is blind, even to our other self

"I thought of holding your hands so many times," Natha caressed my cheek, brushing strands of hair off my sweaty forehead. "Of kissing you."

"Why didn’t you?"

I leaned into his touch, enjoying the slightly warm touch that made me feel like I was propelled back to the past. It was still uncomfortable, not feeling the rough texture of his real skin, especially now that I regained my cognitive back. Yet it was also nostalgic, and fun in its own way.

We were both sweaty, and satiated. Well, almost. I still wanted to go, but Natha reminded me I had to do more purification tomorrow. Oops--today. So, regretfully, we had to stop.

Aah...I didn’t want to let go. I just wanted to lay in bed and bask in his presence, but he also had to go back first thing in the morning. So rather than catching up to a few hours of sleep, I told him to talk to me, saying anything.

Naturally, with the way he was in a human disguise like this, our conversation kept coming back to that moment; our two months of meeting.

Our two months of falling in love.

"So?" I looked up at Natha who seemed to be staring at my face absentmindedly while stroking my head. "You must have realized that I liked you very much. I’m not very good at hiding it--or so Ceci said."

It took him a while to answer it.

"Because I’m a very greedy and jealous person."

Huh? I blinked confusedly. "Who are you jealous of?" I tilted my head slightly, and he replied simply by pointing at himself--no, at his face. "...Nathanael? You’re jealous of...yourself?"

What kind of ridiculous notion was this?

"But it’s not me, isn’t it?" he narrowed his eyes. "We have different souls; I’m just borrowing his body."

He looked at me keenly then, flicking my nose gently. "Even you, who essentially share a soul with Valmaeir, were jealous of him when you thought he was the one I loved."

"But I didn’t know that me and him are..."

I didn’t finish my words. Indeed, I didn’t know about me and Valmeier back then, and just thought I was stealing his body. But even if I knew...would I feel fine if Natha fell in love with Valmeier instead?

No...

No, I would be sad. I would be jealous. I would be brokenhearted.

I mean...I already felt all of that before.

"See?" Natha smirked as the realization came to my face. "I wanted to hold you, I wanted to kiss you, I wanted to say that I fell for you, but...I didn’t even know how much time I had," he let out a long sigh and pulled away, straightening his back. "I kept thinking about the possibility of him catching my feelings for you once I was gone. That he might also fall for you and you, who didn’t know anything about us, would continue to have your feelings for...well, the doctor."

Yeah, he told me about this before. About the reason why he got jealous when I accidentally called him ’Nat’. That he thought perhaps, after he came back to this world, I had continued to have a relationship with Nathanael.

Even though the only ’Nat’ for me was him. Not the doctor, but Natha, who was the source of warmth in my winter.

Still...

"It’s too bad," I reached out my arms so he could help me up and sat on the bed. "You would have both my first in two worlds if you did."

I was already sitting, but he pulled my arms again so I fell forward to his lap.

"Ugh--"

"Don’t tempt me, sweetheart."

I circled my arms around his neck and tilted my head, giving him my most innocent smile. "Whatever are you talking about, my Lord?"

He exhaled heavily, somewhat exasperatedly, before grabbing my waist and back and hauling my laughing ass to the bathroom. "Don’t blame me if you can’t concentrate later."

Hah! Jokes on him--I’m a druid who can rejuvenate myself endlessly if I want!

* * *

"Jade’s awake!"

The water splashed around the bathtub as I stood up in a hurry and stepped out of the water to grab a bathrobe. "Be careful," Natha reminded me as I dried myself while stepping out, just in time to hear a loud crying--chirping--in front of our door.

"Wait, wait--"

I tied my bathrobe tightly and opened the door. Immediately, I was tackled by the force of a little colorful bird that latched onto my chest and wailed. Jade must have woken up in confusion since it was a new place and there was no me. Even if Zarfa and Aina were there, they hadn’t been around Jade long enough for the little bird to find the place safe.

"Where’s Ignis?" I asked while patting my crying baby.

The answer came from the wall, as Ignis crawled inside the room. "I was in the fireplace," the Salamander answered. "I guess Jade was too panicked to realize I was there."

"Why, baby? Are you afraid? Zarfa and Aina were there, weren’t they? All Jade’s friends," I stroke the trembling ball of feathers and kiss the green head, glancing apologetically at the two girls who wobbled toward my room while yawning and clutching the cloak around their nightdress.

"That was some alarm," Aina laughed as she entered the room and jumped onto the couch, hugging the cushion there. "Did you have fun, Boss?"

"It seemed so," Zarfa pulled my bathrobe’s collar and grinned at one of the visible marks Natha made all over my body.

"Hey!" I snatched the collar back and tightened my robe even more while glaring at her. There was a child here, for God’s sake! It was fortunate that Jade was still burying its face in my robe, or else I would have had a hard time explaining it.

Jade would definitely, definitely think Natha was hurting me.

But Zarfa, this girl, just laughed and squeezed my cheeks. "Aww--look at my little no-longer-a-virgin friend~"

"Oh, shut up!"

I immediately covered Jade’s head, who had started to become curious by the sound of their laughter. The beady green eyes looked up and blinked confusedly, but I just shook my head while making sure the bathrobe covered me fully.

"I was only joking, but you were really having fun until morning," Aina laughed again, before yawning and lying down on the couch. "Seeing that you even took a bath at dawn..."

"Whoaa~" Zarfa clasped her mouth dramatically. "You were doing it all night?"

[Doing what?] the green head tilted. [What’s Master doing with Nightmare]

...oh. I looked at Jade in a daze. I was so flustered yesterday when Jade called me ’papa’ but...now that it was back to ’master’, I felt kind of sad. How weird.

But I couldn’t mull over it too much because Zarfa was looking around the room with a curious gaze. "How meticulous; you’ve cleaned everything already."

"I’ve never cleaned anything..." I looked around too, just realizing that the room looked normal, even though I was sure we knocked into a table or something, and I heard the sound of something fragile broken last night.

When did he fix everything? Aside from the sheet disappearing, the bedroom looked as if we had never used it before. Even our strewn-out clothes had been taken care of, fortunately enough.

But when?! Was it when he told me to soak in the tub first after another session in the shower?

"Damn...you really scored big, huh?" Zarfa nudged my side with her elbow, giggling with Aina as my cheeks were heating up.

Well, I did score ’big’...in every sense.

Also, now that I thought about it, this was the first time we had any bed action outside of our private properties. And when you were on private property, well...you kind of didn’t care about the mess, and it would be magically resolved by the servants.

Haa...it was like he kept finding ways to make me fall for him even more.

"But where is the Big Boss?" Aina asked curiously.

"Bathroom?" I turned my head around and, as if being summoned, the bath chamber door opened a few seconds after. Natha walked out nonchalantly while putting on a cufflink, all neat with a formal suit he usually wore for work. All but his black jacket. "Oh, you’re going already?"

"There’s a scheduled morning court today," he walked toward the couch. "I need to read some submitted reports first."

He held my cheek from behind and leaned down to kiss me briefly. "Do it comfortably today," he said. "Have some fun after, before going back."

He took out three things from his storage ring then; two pieces of elemental mana stones he gave Jade and Ignis, a pouch he put on my lap, and a beautiful white card he gave Zarfa.

I took the pouch and heard a clinking sound inside which made me blink. "Is this allowance?"

"Didn’t you promise Zidoa some souvenirs?" he stroked my cheek.

Oh, right! I didn’t have human currency! I didn’t need to spend my own money this whole trip, so I didn’t even remember it. Of course, the card Natha gave me was only eligible in the Demon Realm.

Jade, with an elemental mana stone in its mouth, pulled the string on the pouch curiously and peeked inside. [Lots of sparkly metals]

Yeah, of course--of course, he would only give me gold and platinum coins. Dozens of them, at least a hundred each. I did mean to look for souvenirs for the people back home, but...did he think I was going to look for them in a high-class auction or something? Did he think I was going to buy a mansion as a souvenir? Or an ancient artifact? Or rare jewelry?

Ah, whatever. Because even more sparkly than the mini vault on my lap was the card in Zarfa’s hand. It was rather thick and pearly white, with a subtle sparkle underneath. Each corner of the card was adorned with gold carving--and I was pretty sure they were made of real gold, not just gold-colored or gold-coated. There were several lines of words on one side, and on the other, was a magic formation in beautiful deep green ink, for teleportation.

"Just put your mana or drip your blood in the magic formation, and you’ll arrive at the venue," Natha told the girl. The girls. "It’s for two."

Aina gasped and immediately scurried over to Zarfa’s side. "Me too?"

What? What is it?

I leaned closer to the girls curiously, and caught my name, as well as Natha’s, on the card. Aside from our names, there was only another line added; a date.

The date of our wedding.

I turned to look at him; lips parted in surprise. "Is this..."

He smiled and stroked my chin while replying. Our wedding invitation."